elephant the regions fouth of thefe confines, and thofe north to the mammoth, founding the conftitution of the one in her extreme of heat, and that of the other in the extreme of cold. When the Creator has therefore feparated their nature as far as the extent of the fcale of animal life allowed to this planet would permit, it feems perverfe to declare it the fame, from a partial refem- blance of their tulks and bones. But to whatever animal we afcribe thefe remains, it is certain fuch a one has exifted in Ame- rica, and that it has been the largefl: of all terreftrial beings. It fliould have fuificed to have refcued the earth it inhabited, and the atmofphere it breathed, from the im- putation of impotence in the conception and nourilhment of animal life on a large fcale: to have ftifled, in its birth, the opinion of a writer, the moft learned too of all others in the fcience of animal hiftory, that in the new world, * La na- ture vivante eft beaucoup moins agiffante, beaucoup moins forte:'* that nature is lefs aftive, lefs energetic on one fide of the globe than ihe is on the other. As if both fides were not warmed by the fame genial fun; as if a foil of the fame che- mical compofition, was lefs capable of elaboration into animal nutriment; as if the fruits and grains from that foil and fun, yielded a lefs rich chyle, gave lefs extenfion to the folids and fluids of the body, or produced fooner in the cartilages, membranes, and fibres, that rigidity which reftrains all further extenfion, and ter- minates animal growth. The truth is, that a Pigmy and a Patagonian, Moufe and a Mammoth, derive their dimenfions from the fame nutritive juices. The dif- ference of increment depends on circum- ftances unfearchable to beings with our capacities. Every race of animals feems to have received from their Maker certain laws of extenfion at the time of their formation. Their elaborative organs were formed to produce this, while proper ob- ftacles were oppofed to its further pro- grefs. Below thefe limits they cannot * BufFon, xviii. I22 edit. Paris, 1764.
fall, nor rife above them. What hiterme-- diate ftation they fliail take may depend on foil, on cUmate, on food, on a careful choice of breeders. But all the manna of heaven would never raife the moufe to the bulk of the mammoth.